


Full Moon

by DoreyG



Category: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Mid-The Shirt on His Back, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27895579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: He was so caught up in misery, particularly the misery that came upon him when he thought of the raw look that tended to linger on Shaw's face when he was too tired to hide it, that it took him a while to realise that there was a wolf before him.
Relationships: Abishag Shaw/Benjamin January
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Full Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sadlikeknives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/gifts).



If he had expected himself to grow resigned to his necessary confinement in the tree that Shaw had picked, he was proven steadily more wrong by the moment. His legs were cramping, and his bladder was bursting, and there were a thousand other physical inconveniences that would've been almost unbearable on their own but together added up to a unique kind of hell.

Even worse than that, though, were the mental complaints. The gnawing fear, that at any moment he would be dragged out of his hiding place and torn apart. The wistful longing for New Orleans, only slightly tempered by the knowledge that it would probably be just as bad there in some shape or form. The growing worry for not only himself but for his friends, particularly Shaw who had seemed so very beaten down when he had left him to find his own hiding place in the woods.

He was so caught up in misery, particularly the misery that came upon him when he thought of the raw look that tended to linger on Shaw's face when he was too tired to hide it, that it took him a while to realise that there was a wolf before him.

It was a big beast, not massively oversized but gigantic to a degree that he definitely wasn't comfortable having it sitting in front of him. It was remarkably ugly for a wolf, which he had always thought to be remarkably elegant creatures apart from their teeth, and although he couldn't see that we'll from a distance its eyes appeared to be a strange shade.

They were also fixed on him, in a way that made his heart pound in his chest uncomfortably. He knew the sudden fear that after all of this, after a whole life lived reluctantly on the edge of death, the thing to finally take him out would be a lone wolf in the forest in the middle of the night while his bladder was full.

But the wolf, although it kept watching him, didn't immediately lunge for his throat. And after a few breathless minutes he realised that perhaps he wasn't going to get eaten while he desperately needed to piss. And with that realization came other ones. That he knew the exact colour of that ditchwater fur, that he had felt those intense eyes resting on him before, that the shape of that narrow face - although translated to wolf form - was intimately familiar to him.

" _Shaw_?" He whispered across the space between them, half disbelieving but knowing at the same time that they'd faced far stranger things.

For a long moment the wolf only stared at him, and he found himself worrying that he had just idiotically revealed his position to an actual wolf who would have no qualms with snapping up easy prey. But then, to his intense surprise, the wolf inclined its head in an unmistakable nod and whimpered ever so softly in answer.

 _Will you become a wolf yourself?_ he dazedly remembered thinking, just a few hours ago as he had looked at Shaw’s set face and wondered just how far he would go in pursuit of revenge. Briefly, the urge to panic and scream was extremely strong in him.

But… No. This wasn’t some monster, some supernatural creature come to steal him away and leave his bones in a place where they would never be found. This was Shaw. The man who had shot men dead because they had twitched their trigger finger in his direction, the person who had dragged him out of more near death situations than he could count, one of the small handful of people in the world that he actually trusted. So he drew himself up instead of screaming, and met those familiar eyes steadily. “How long has this been a thing, exactly?”

He didn’t know what he was expecting, it was pretty clear that Shaw couldn’t speak while he was in wolf form, but he wasn’t entirely expecting to receive a shrewd look and then an approximation of a shrug in return. The sentiment was pretty easy to figure out, though. Shaw didn’t know how long it’d been a thing, quite possibly because he’d been dealing with it for as long as he could remember.

“You know, I always thought you were far too good at tracking. And far too good at staying alive, too; if any normal human had taken as many blows as you have over the years, they would’ve been dead long before now,” he said, and felt a certain sense of curiosity rise up in his chest now that the unreasonable terror - instinctive, when it came to things that went bump in the night - had faded away. “I’m not going to lie, and say that this isn’t somewhat strange…”

Shaw let out a little huff. Wolves couldn’t laugh, or at least he thought they couldn’t laugh, but he had the impression that Shaw was rather amused.

“...But I’m not saying it’s a bad kind of strange,” he finished, and knew that Shaw could probably see his fond smile even through the dark. He’d always thought the man had unreasonably good eyesight, too, and it was nice to have some explanation for that even if it was unconventional. “Thank you for telling me. I know it must’ve taken quite a lot of courage, to show me a secret this intimate.”

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting from that, either, but it was probably something along the lines of Shaw moving as briskly along with business as ever and refusing to go anywhere near anything even resembling emotion. But instead Shaw hung his head and whimpered lowly, transforming within a moment from a fearsome beast to a dog who had just been kicked.

“Oh.” Apparently he was more of an expert in wolf body language than he had ever thought. Either that, or he was more an expert in Shaw’s body language than he’d ever dreamed. “Let me guess, you didn’t actually have a choice in sharing it with me at this point.”

Shaw remained with his head bent and his body language defeated for a long few moments. And then, very slowly, clambered to his feet and trotted over to his side. He probably should’ve felt terrified to have a wild creature so close to him, even if he logically knew that said wild creature was Shaw, but instead he only felt a mild sense of relief as Shaw curled his big body up close to him.

“You’re stuck, aren’t you?” He asked, still keeping his voice low as he twisted his head to survey Shaw from a closer vantage point. From close up the differences from a real wolf were easier to see: he was bigger and slightly more muscular than the usually rangy creatures, and his eyes were undeniably human ones staring from a furred face.

Shaw twisted his head to regard him in turn for a long second, and then let out a soft bark. He recalled signals that he’d used as a child, and less long ago with Shaw himself in the slums of New Orleans: one tap for yes, two taps for no. He supposed a yap worked as well as a tap, in this kind of situation.

“That must be difficult, to be forced to keep only to one form,” he said to Shaw besides him, trying to keep his voice as sympathetic as possible despite his curiosity. “At least, I assume. Both that you’re not usually forced to remain in one form, and that it’s difficult for you. For all I know, you’re absolutely thrilled to be stuck as a wolf at present moment. It might be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

Shaw hesitated for a long moment. And then, instead of yapping again, gave a rough wriggle of his body on the ground. It’s complicated, he seemed to say without words.

“I can understand that,” he said softly, surprised to find that he genuinely did despite the utter strangeness of the situation. “There have been a few times in my life where, if I could’ve turned into an animal, I would’ve left human life behind and ran far away. When I was taken away from my father, when my wife - Ayasha - was taken away from me, when I had to leave Paris behind. What I wouldn’t have given to just spring away into the sky or sea or forest, to forget human pain and bury myself in the uncomplicated life of a beast.”

Shaw watched him with intelligent eyes, seeming to hang on his every word. He did that while he was in human form too, affording him a level of respect that so few people seemed to think him worthy of.

“But if I’d done that, I would’ve left so much behind,” he said softly, determined to make the most of Shaw’s attention. Determined to make him see, and so not have to face the terrifying spectre of losing him forever. “If you do that, you’ll leave so much behind. There are so many people that care for you, Shaw. You know that, right?”

Shaw studied him for a long moment more, his wolven face solemn. And then turned away from him just a little, let out two soft yaps into the night.

“Don’t say- don’t _do_ that, you know for a fact that you have a lot of people,” he snapped, an unexpectedly passionate anger rising up in him. To think that Shaw, brilliant Shaw who eternally took up far more room in his head than he was ever supposed to, thought that he was unloved was hard to bear. “Hannibal cares for you more than he ever could say, and Rose feels much the same way. Your men respect you, and would miss you if you were gone. Tom would mourn your absence, just as surely as he mourned Johnny’s. Would you really abandon all of them?”

Shaw didn’t yap an affirmative, but he also didn’t seem particularly motivated to deny it. Instead he just laid there in the dirt besides him, listlessly twitching his tail and seeming distressingly disinterested in the world around him.

“Would you really abandon me?” He asked urgently, and hesitated for a moment before forcing himself to go on. This confession had been coming for years, creeping up in slow increments ever since they had first seen each other across a dead body, and although he had imagined a far finer occasion for spitting it out he supposed that this one would do as well as any. “Because I have to tell you, Shaw, I am not pleased at that idea. Not pleased at that idea at all. I don’t want you to remain a wolf, and run off into the woods forevermore. Not with how much I care about you.”

Shaw’s head swung sharply back in his direction at that confession. The man - the wolf - stared at him in utter incomprehension for a long few moments, but then mercifully - totally unexpectedly, considering that he’d half been expecting him to clamber up to his paws and disappear into the woods entirely - shifted a little closer instead.

He reached out, slowly and tentatively and giving Shaw ample room to move away. But he didn’t, and so before he knew it he had one arm wrapped around the body of a wolf. He took a second to marvel, and then shifted sideways until he could bury his face in warm fur and continued to hold on. “I really do care about you, you know, and I’m sorry I never thought to share it with you before now. You are genuinely one of the most special people that I’ve ever met. I have never met any man so smart, so determined, so passionate about the pursuit of justice. Five years ago I thought that I could never love anybody as much as Ayasha, but…”

Shaw turned his head in his arms, looked up at him with eyes that were disbelieving and hopeful all at once.

“Then I met you,” he finished, and smiled fondly as he stared dead on into Shaw’s eyes. “And you weren’t the only thing that brought me back to life, I won’t lie, but you were the one who opened my eyes to how sweet it could be again.”

Shaw didn’t respond with words, because of course he couldn’t, but he also didn’t yank away from him entirely. He seemed to freeze for a long moment, doubtlessly turning the entire confession over in his wonderfully sharp steel trap of a mind… And then shifted closer to him again, downright urging him to bury his head back in that thick fur once more.

“Of course, you don’t have to decide tonight,” he said, fighting against his urge to plead, and happily buried his face fully in Shaw’s impossible warmth. “Just please, think about the matter. And please don’t leave me to wake up all alone in these woods in the morning, wondering where on earth you could be and knowing that I’m never going to see you again.”

There was a long moment of silence. And then Shaw yapped once, quiet but definite. An agreement.

There was little else he could do, given that he was practically fainting under the mixture of old hurts and sudden passionate relief. He wrapped his arm even tighter around Shaw, trying to tether the wolf to his side, and fell asleep with his face pressed comfortingly against ever so warm fur.

\--

The next morning he woke up to find a very human, very warm, very naked Shaw wrapped around him in exactly the same position that the wolf had been the night before.

He turned his head very carefully, trying his best not to wake the man if he was mid-exhausted slumber, and immediately met sharp eyes watching him in turn. They stared at each other from up close for a long few moments, both aware that they were currently standing on a precipice and waiting to see what happened next.

“You didn’t leave,” he was the first one to break the silence. Quietly, but he could hear the naked relief in his voice.

“Guess I listened to what you said, maestro,” Shaw said. His voice was creaky, which was probably to be expected considering that he had only recently recovered use of his vocal chords, but was clear enough that he could hear the obvious nerves lurking behind it. “Did you mean it?”

His answer was instantaneous, one of the clearest things he’d known in the past four years since he’d dragged himself back to New Orleans broken and battered. “Yes,”

“All of it?” Shaw pressed, looking actively shocked at the speed of his reply. He supposed that he could understand that, better than he had ever wished to. It was hard to believe in good things in the world, when it persisted in slapping you in the face at every possible opportunity.

“Yes,” he repeated, making his voice firm, and dared to reach out with the arm that wasn’t already wrapped around Shaw to brush his overlong hair back from his face. The man trembled slightly under his touch, breathing sharply as if the good things he was being openly offered were actively terrifying, but didn’t take his intense eyes from him. “I will be honest, I don’t know what it’s going to be like to love a werewolf. But I’m determined to try.”

There was a long moment of silence, Shaw’s ever wary eyes fixed intensely on his face with that old wary expression still lurking within them.

He wasn’t sure who initiated the kiss in the end, but once it started they both leaned into it eagerly. Shaw kissed with an only barely restrained passion, shuddering in his arms with his attempt to hold himself back just a little. He took great pleasure in trying to get that iron control to break, in sliding his hands into Shaw’s long hair and touching the bared expanse of warm skin until the man was actively rocking against him.

“Maestro-” Shaw said against his mouth, and then broke from him deliberately with a huffed noise that was closer to laughter than he’d ever heard the other man manage. “As much as I appreciate the enthusiasm, we might well have to leave this for later. This is, unfortunately, hardly the place to get carried away with ourselves.”

“Later,” he promised, and gave Shaw an intense look until the other man let out another huff of laughter and smiled disbelievingly. They untangled themselves with some effort and even more reluctance, clambered slowly to their feet and stared at each other joyously in the dappled green light of the clearing. “Won’t you be cold, walking around like that?”

Shaw was still naked, temptingly naked he allowed himself to notice now, and his clothes were nowhere in sight. He glanced down at himself for a moment, and then looked back up at him with a wry smile and an entirely new sparkle in those keen eyes. “There’s a lot more to this than I can explain right now, but trust me when I say that ain’t exactly an issue. Besides, if I remain like this it only gives you more time to enjoy the view.”

He found himself barely biting back his own joyous laugh at that, and by the fierce expression of happiness on Shaw’s face the other man well knew that. He had never seen Shaw flirtatious before, had barely seen him as anything other than obsessively focused on justice, and he looked forward to discovering yet another entirely new side to the man.

They headed back into the woods together, in search of where Hannibal was hiding. And all the way he dwelled on how he had never thought he would be so very glad to meet a werewolf.


End file.
